Attacking the Lending Lifecycle... Raise your hand if you'd like to process real estate transactions faster. Yep, everybody's hand is up. Doesn't matter if you're leasing space, managing properties or making loans. And in an ideal world of common standards and systems, transactions would flow more smoothly. But in the real world of competing interests, proprietary standards and cultural barriers, the development of an efficient marketplace is a Herculean task. You need a big stick, a big carrot and a big wallet to make waves.

Maybe that's why Mortgage
Ramp's logo features a symbolic wave. Owned by many of the major players in real estate finance -- like GMAC, Bank of America, Deutsche Bank, Fannie Mae, Goldman Sachs, Moody's and Standard & Poor's -- MortgageRamp pretty much does everything, including document recovery, due diligence, inspections, investor direct, online origination, technology consulting and underwriting. Its flagship products are DealCentral, a "platform" for managing the loan lifecycle, MultiTrak, an underwriting process for multifamily loans, and FastTrak Services, delivering tools for originating loans in 10 days or less.

Last month Ned Finkenstaedt, Chief Operating Officer, and Ken Beyer, Chief Technology Officer, briefed me at MortgageRamp's headquarters in Horsham, PA. Essentially DealCentral creates a web-based "marketplace" where information can be share by mortgage bankers, lenders, B-piece investors, third parties and rating agencies -- just about everybody who touches a loan.

So far six major brokers, including GMACCM, LJ Melody and Rainmaker, and ten lenders, including Archon/Goldman Sachs, CIBC Mortgages, Fannie Mae, Merrill Lynch and Newman Financial have implemented or are rolling out the DealCentral platform. As you might imagine, the major challenge to rapid growth is adoption at the individual user level. But Finkenstaedt and Beyer believe that the self-interest of each player will create a powerful incentive to collectively support the DealCentral workflow standard. It's an impressive demonstration of vision, power and technology.

--Peter Pike